What We Do
Pathways to Authentic Connection offers facilitation, training, and consulting services to transform personal and professional development programs by integrating the neuroscience of authentic connection with horses. ​
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Grounded in the neuroscience of safety and Polyvagal Theory informed, our services will be customized to meet the specific goals for:
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Equine-assisted practitioners seeking to strengthen staff development, enhance horse-human connection, and design unique programs that offer powerful connection-based experiential learning for clients.
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Corporate leaders seeking innovative and meaningful professional and organizational development that enables effective leadership, strengthens communication, and creates a culture of well-being for sustainable productivity in the workplace.
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Our website and services are currently being updated. However, we invite you to explore and reach out if you would like to discuss how Pathways to Authentic Connection can support your goals. We would love to start a conversation.
Nervous System
Well-being
What is it?
Introduction
Our capacity for wellness and growth personally and professionally depends on how safe and connected our nervous system feels in relationships.
The Nervous System’s Role
When we feel threatened, our nervous system automatically diverts vital energy from wellness and learning and directs this energy into the neuropathways that mobilize us for protection and survival. When the threat passes, a well-regulated nervous system will return this energy to the neuropathways that sustain wellness in relationships and our capacity for growth and balance. In other words, to use the metaphor of a horse grazing in a pasture who is then chased by a lion, if we learn how to regulate our nervous system responses, just like a horse, after the lion is gone, we are able to reset our nervous system and return to grazing.
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However, when our nervous system has been overwhelmed by trauma and stress, or neglected and ignored, our energy can become stuck in survival (depression, anxiety, fear, and anger) and we are unable to return to grazing. Furthermore, chronic stress or traumatic experiences can short-circuit the neuropathways that form the infrastructure necessary to sustain our well-being; and so, no matter how hard we try to heal, grow, and thrive, our vital energy is trapped in the reactive patterns of survival -- the neuropathways of fight, flight, or freeze -- and unavailable to sustain well-being and growth.
Becoming Conscious Creators
Pathways to Authentic Connection offers EAL practitioners and corporate trainers services that incorporate this neuroscience of connection and well-being into powerful experiential learning with horses. These experiences will cultivate the embodied awareness that is key to nervous system regulation. With embodied awareness and a regulated nervous system anchored in well-being, we have the foundational capacity to be conscious creators personally and professionally, rather than just passengers along for the ride.
Why Authentic Connection Is Essential
Humans are hardwired for social connection. As Dr. Stephen Porges, founder of Polyvagal Theory, and numerous others in the field have stated, connection is a biological imperative. In other words, without connection we do not survive. Why? Because we need more than food and shelter to survive. We need a sense of physical, mental, and emotional safety -- a sense that we are valued and cared about.
Our capacity to feel safe and cared about is directly related to our capacity for authentic connection. The neuropathways that activate when we feel safe are the same pathways that activate when we are engaged in authentic connection.
This is why my work, whether for individuals or groups, and whether for EAL practitioners or corporate trainers, is grounded in helping clients understand and incorporate the neuroscience of safety and authentic connection into their programs.
The interactive sessions with the horses and the curriculum and resources I offer provide a unique and powerful opportunity for participants to experience authentic connection with horses. My services, whether through direct facilitation, horse/human training, or consultation for specific outcomes are designed to create experiential sessions with the horses that invite individuals and groups to partner with their nervous system (as well as the horses), recognize and appreciate nervous system states, notice what the nervous system needs to feel safe and connected and provide the non-judgement, compassion, and clear intention need to redirect their nervous system energy from patterns of protection into patterns of connection.
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Fundamental to this work with the horses is the practice of resonant listening. Resonant listening is the art of helping horse and human feel seen, heard, and understood. When we feel seen, heard, and understood, there is a safe space for bringing body, mind, and emotion into congruence. We cannot be authentic in our connection without being congruent internally in what we are thinking, feeling, and doing. Authentic connection is the only pathway to trust and without trust we cannot feel safe. ​​
Why Experiences with Horses are so Powerful
​​Horses require authenticity to feel safe. Their sensitivity to nervous system cues offers honest, non-judgmental feedback that creates a living classroom where learning is an embodied experience. Because the inherent nature of a horse as a prey animal is to seek safety in connection, regulation and co-regulation in relationship with a horse creates authentic connection where safety becomes more than a catch phrase, it becomes a state of being within the human and the horse.
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As we practice with the horses, we become more and more anchored in this state of authentic connection. We learn to recognize when the nervous system (our own system, another human's system, or the system of a horse) is activated into the protective fight, flight, or freeze responses -- anxiety, anger, shame, or depression -- and we know how to compassionately and consciously lead the system back to regulation and safety. We thus become conscious creators empowered to successfully navigate life's personal and professional challenges because we are safely anchored in a state of well-being.